Strange Windower Behaviour

Cross posting here and on Discord.
Despite the wonky clickbait title, I have no clue if it's strictly a windower related issue, but maybe someone will be able to help me isolate the source of the issue.
It's been happening to me for several months.

I play in full screen, single instance, "new" PC I got march 2024, Windows 11, 4070 Super.

What happens?
Well it's hard to describe, it's a multifaceted issue.
Basically I often alt-tab a lot, maybe to go back to my browser and read stuff as FFXI is loading new zone, or if I need to read data from a wiki page etc.
Sometimes, not all the times but it's not something very rare, when I alt-tab back to FFXI the scren is "frozen". I can hear the audio, I can give inputs and move my character or in between menus, but I see nothing happening on screen, like a "screenshot" of my window before alt-tabbing is displayed instead of the real game.
To "fix" it I normally have to Alt tab away and then alt-tab back in or click on the FFXI process in the Windows 11 taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
That fixes it until next time it happens again.

Another strange part: sometimes when I'm in windows and I alt-tab to FFXI again... nothing happens, I remain in windows.
I can click manually on the FFXI process in the taskbar, and nothing happens, as if the FFXI/Windower process was hung up.
How to fix it?
I have to alt-tab through other windows process multiple times, or click multiple times in a row on the FFXI process in the task bar, or minimize all currently active windows processes until the only thing left on screen (full screen) is the FFXI game, which will be in full screen but behind the windows task bar.
At that point if I click anywhere on FFXI screen, things will go back to normal until next time it happens again.

Also, might not be related and pure coincidence, but during this second thing sometimes if it happened and I didn't notice within a certain amount of time, when I go back to FFXI I find the black screen and pop up in the center of the screen that you get when you lose connection to the server. I just click ok and I get brought back to the character select screen (and everything goes back to normal from then).
During these strange occurings I also happen to get strange Windower errors.
I noticed only once.
For instance yesterday I used an //HP somewhere command and alt-tabbed as the HP was being loaded up on my client.
This problem occurred without me noticing while I was alt-tabbed on the browser, but then I came back to FFXI and I noticed a strange windower error in the chatlog and console saying the //HP addon couldn't communicate. Which would imply the FFXI process was frozen or something and if I took a few more seconds probably I would've incurred into the network error described above.



Now I know this is all very strange and honestly I've never experienced anything like this in FFXI, Windower or any other game for what it's worth.
(actually... the first part, the "screen freeze" wigh game/menu working normally but me not seeing because the scren is frozen until I alt-tab away and alt-tab back in, is something I've seen happen in Diablo4 as well, but just that part, nothing else)

I seriously doubt it's strictly windower related, it feels to me it's something else Windows or nVidia drivers or something related but I don't have the slighest clue what it could be.



Anybody got an idea? Tests I could run? Things I could check like in task manager when this happens, to reduce the number of possible variables and get a clearer idea which setting or whatever else is causing this strange behaviour?
Thanks!

Yes this used to happen to me, no idea what caused it and only stopped after I upgraded my PC. Not much info going around about the freezing, especially if you are experiencing this after upgrading to a new PC.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/58243/ffxi-screen-is-freezing-but-can-still-hear-audio#3734202

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/58061/weird-alt-tab-behavior-is-normal-in-windows-11/

enable windows key in windower launcher. if you were using it for binds, tough. gotta pick your poison.

To me this sounds like your machine is pausing background apps to focus computing on the main window you’re alt+tab’ed to.

A few things that our fellow ChatGPT suggests trying:

1. Focus Assist: Focus Assist is a feature in Windows 11 that can reduce distractions by limiting notifications, but it doesn’t directly affect background processes like apps or games.


2. Game Mode: This feature, specifically aimed at gaming, prioritizes resources for the game you’re currently playing. It can reduce the resources allocated to background apps and other non-essential tasks. While this doesn’t completely pause background apps, it optimizes the system for a better gaming experience by reducing the load from other processes.
To disable Game Mode in Windows 11:
1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Gaming > Game Mode.
3. Toggle off Game Mode.


3. Nvidia Control Panel (Nvidia settings): If you have an Nvidia GPU, there are settings in the Nvidia Control Panel that can adjust how resources are allocated for different applications, including games and background tasks.
In the Nvidia Control Panel, you can tweak settings like “Power Management Mode” to prioritize performance over power saving, which might help allocate more resources to the active game or app.
To adjust Nvidia settings:
1. Right-click on the desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel.
2. Under Manage 3D settings, you can modify the Power Management Mode (choose Prefer maximum performance) or adjust other settings that could influence how resources are allocated to background tasks.


4. Background Apps Settings: Windows 11 also has settings to manage which apps can run in the background, which could reduce the strain on system resources.
To disable background apps in Windows 11:
1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Privacy & Security > Background Apps.
3. Toggle off Let apps run in the background or manage specific apps to stop them from running.

An older version of dgvoodoo had a similar issue with Ashita. It was accumulating some sort of task, and when you tabbed back in it'd freeze while it caught up. The longer you left the tab inactive, the longer it'd freeze for.

That said, are you using the latest dgvoodoo? Maybe try that if not.

Granted that the specific experience I'm having on FFXI is a bit deeper and has additional multifaceted aspects which I attempted to describe above, the first part (screen freeze when alt-tabbing back in) is something I've occasionally experienced in other games as well.
Less frequently than on FFXI but that doesn't say a lot because I'm frankly not able to tell if it's a matter of real lower frequency, or a matter of me alt-tabbing much less on other games.

With this said, there could be multiple sources to this issue, but I'm leanign to think at the very least there's gotta be some generic thing in Windows 11 or nVidia settings.


You guys all gave me a lot of cool ideas to test though, I'm gonna try em all and see I can solve anything. Thanks in advance!

screen freeze and disconnects happened to me when alt tabbing after the windows update in the thread I linked. would def check if your windows key is enabled in windower launcher first before changing anything else

Ok tested a few things:


1) DGVoodoo2 update - nope, wasn't this

2) Windows key enabled in Windower - nope, wasn't this either

You have to keep in mind guys that, from reading the other thread, the issue with you was very consistant. To me it doesn't happen every time I alt-tab back in. Also I had no problem whatsoever with window preview. And last but not least I play a single instance only.
I left the "enable windows key" option up for now. Should I turn it off? What does it even do?


3) Nvidia Fast V-Sync disable (as I explained in the other thread) - I'm currently testing this, I'm very skepting this has anything to do with my issue because it seems something that would affect only recent games and not an old one like FFXI.
So far the issue didn't appear but that doesn't say a lot in itself, I need a much longer playtime to really see if it happens or not.


edit:
never mind, took me a while but I managed to get it to happen again even with the Fast Vsync setting off ;_;

wish I knew, everything you described was exactly what happened to me when the windows update was installed back in november/december.

other than this specific post, the only thing I did was make sure win key was enabled in windower.



Question though, do you have the latest Windows 11, version 24H2 update from this month? It may have been January, I had paused it but mine installed a week ago.

Yep, Windows 11 24H2 SO build 26100.3194

I've been having this strange issue for a while. On a hunch I'd say at least from december 2024 if not even earlier, but I can't find proof.
I can 100% sure it's been here AT LEAST since jan the 19th 2025 and I have proof of that.

This issue sounds almost exactly like an issue I used to have on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 10 1507-1511. The only programs I ever had issues with at the time were Windower, Itunes, and the old Battle.net launcher, all would exhibit pretty much this exact issue you're describing.

The only thing that seems to set my issue apart from yours is I had the ability to basically click through the programs. So for example, I'd have the same issue where I couldn't tab back to FFXI, if I tried to click directly on it and I had say Chrome open on the same monitor, it would click through FFXI and click on the Chrome process behind it. If I lined my mouse up right I could also double click Icons on my desktop through the programs as if they weren't really there. This ability to click through my programs was the issue I thought was wrong with my computer at the time, and I never heard of anyone having a similar issue till now. And since I was clicking through programs I had to do what you did (minimize everything till only FFXI was left).

Do you know if yours behaves similar with the ability to click through the program until you get it back in focus? Cause if you're having the same issue I found a fix eventually, it just sucked.

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about with the clickthrough thing.
Do you play with non-maximized windows on your screen?
Because if that's so, then I guess I can picture what you described.

I personally keep pretty much everything maximized to fullscreen (specifically for FFXI it's borderless windowed).


How frequently did it happen to you?
Because for me it's uhm... pretty random, but I would guess something around 10% of the times or lower.

I have that issue too sometimes, the easiest way i found to solve this is to use my phone for wiki etc and just use the pc for the game. And if i wanna update gearswap, when the screen freeze, i'll just put the mouse pointer onto the FFXI icon in the task bar and it will un freeze the screen.

Try deleting the Nvidia app. Using the overlay has caused this weird freeze for me.

Never used the nVidia app to begin with, alas

Trying to research how to fix the alt-tab issue, I found out that they changed the behavior that if you want to “alt-tab” in a particular app it is now ALT-‘ (backtick key)

I am no windower expert - does anyone know how to turn off ALT-‘ as a windower shortcut?

Ya most people don't understand what I'm talking about half the time lol.

So yes, I do play with the game maximized, I'll try and provide an example to see if that describes it better. Say I had FFXI maximized on Monitor 1, but also had a Chrome Window open on Monitor 1. Normally if you have FFXI in focus Chrome would be "behind" it. When I would click to go back to FFXI (click in the FFXI window, not click FFXI on the taskbar), it would bring into focus the Chrome window that was behind it for example instead of FFXI. If there was nothing behind it (so only the desktop) if I lined my mouse up with the icons on my desktop I could click them basically "through" the FFXI maximized window as if it wasn't even there.


Very random for me as well, but probably around there, somewhere between 1/20-1/10 times I opened FFXI and tabbed away at some point.